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April 30, 2009

MoFo Picks Up Longtime Life Sciences Attorney

Former Cooley partner and Genentech general counsel Brian Cunningham has joined Morrison & Foerster as senior counsel and co-chairman of the firm’s life sciences group, the firm said Thursday.

From the archive: We last photographed Cunningham in the mid-90s.

Cunningham was most recently CEO and director of Trellis Bioscience, a privately held biotech company based in South San Francisco.

He was a partner at Cooley between 1989 and 1998, during which time he founded its life sciences group. He rejoined Cooley again in 2003 as of counsel and retired in December 2006 before becoming CEO at Trellis in January 2007.

From 1982 to 1989, Cunningham was general counsel of Genentech, which was bought by Roche for $46.8 billion last month.

“Brian has tremendous industry knowledge and experience,” said Stephen Thau, co-chairman of Morrison & Foerster’s Life Sciences Group. “His deep roots in the life sciences sector are a welcome complement to the rich expertise of the firm’s established practice.”